awkward playdate encounter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My natural instinct is to widen his friend circle but sadly these are the kids he loves and wants to hang with.

Do both.

This. Also who he’s friends with in second grade isn’t who he will be friends with in 5th or 6th.

[Anonymous]

By sixth grade he'll have an entirely new friend set. You will not have spent time with these moms in years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are not insane to feel bothered by this. I would have felt hurt and excluded. On behalf of myself and my kid.

+1 lots of excuse making in this thread as people likely see themselves as the non-intentional yet intentional excluders.
Two boys and mom, that I could see as 2 is an easy agreeable number and one mom might be drawn to another. But 3, is usually a crowd. This did not happen by accident.

[Anonymous]

Mom groups can be very tricky. One mom is usually put on the outs. I've been that mom who ran with my kid into the group somewhere when we were obviously the only family not contacted/invited. It stings to realize they excluded you but it's also a blessing in disguise because you now see the reality of how they view you and your kid. They are indeed sending you (and or/your kid) a message by not inviting you so heed the call. I signed my kid up for parks and rec activities such as basketball and began steering them in other directions, slowly, away from these kids. Usually the new school year took care of it quite well when my kid was in a different classroom from most or all of the other kids. It broke up the group dynamic and my kid made a few new friends in class. Just be patient. Use the summer to reset and hope for a classroom assignment that gets your kid a fresh start, friendwise.

[Anonymous]

The fact that they texted you group pictures later means they felt bad about excluding you. I’d guess it was an accident. If they had pretended not to see you at the park (which has happened to me) then I’d feel really awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that they texted you group pictures later means they felt bad about excluding you. I’d guess it was an accident. If they had pretended not to see you at the park (which has happened to me) then I’d feel really awful.

Or, it meant that they were oblivious that they were supposed to have invited OP to start with- like others have said, maybe 2 of them had a sleepover last night, and then bumped into the third one this morning at Dunkin Donuts and they were like "oh hey want to meet at the park later?". Not everything has to be so serious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom of young adults here. You must differentiate your friends from your children's friends. You don't have to be close friends with your children's friend's parents. These relationships are temporary and about proximity only. Like having neighbors. Just because you live next door to someone doesn't mean you have to be their bestie or hang with the neighborhood. It's okay not to emotionally invest in these parents and try to seek their favor. It's about your kid having friendships to learn social skills and life lessons, not about you. Emotionally divest yourself from these moms. As I say, they are temporary fixtures in your life so treat them as such.

Also a mom of young adults, some of that differentiating happened naturally. Our kids were friends but drifted apart and we acted like adults and maintained our friendships.

[Anonymous]

OP, I would really, really encourage you to not read too much into this. I have two kids who have had wildly different social experiences. One is in several different friend groups at school and through activities and is very much a “more the merrier” type. I don’t know the moms of several of her friends, some I like and have connections to but we all really just want our kids to have friends. This approach has served my daughter VERY well and she has lost very little sleep over not being invited to any one event or worrying about drama over having just some friends over.

My second is very different and has a long term best friend, whose mom I like and consider a friend but not one of my best friends. They are great kids but with imperfectly overlapping interests. I know the best friend also has a good friend who does his particular sport and the two of them out without my kid. My kid has friends who also share other interests or live nearby and show up at our house. It’s all fine. As long as someone seems happy to see you and invites you some of the time they want your kids to be friends and like you enough. That’s really all you can ask for out of this age group.

[Anonymous]

PP here again- some moms get really invested in the idea of a tight knit friend group. 99 percent of the time it’s driven by the moms and 1 percent it’s driven by a kid who doesn’t feel second their friendships. But this just doesn’t work in elementary school long term and it’s asking for trouble to try and force an “in club” mentality on the kids.

[Anonymous]

It’s rude, period. I don’t blame you for questioning it. If the mom who organized it wanted to include you, she would have. If it was a coincidence that they ran into each other, the should have mentioned it. Have manners, be inclusive and treat others the way you want to be treated. Set an example for your kids and don’t be a jerk.

[Anonymous]

My oldest is in high school now. The mom groups/friends don’t last after elementary.

I would separate adult friendships from the kids. I am still good friends with a few moms from those preschool and early elementary days but they are my friends. Our kids don’t hang out.

I have been through so many of these groups and I have been the one to stop including others and have also not been included. People getting closer often has to do with husbands or siblings. Or the opposite. If there is a family and the dads get along, we will probably hang with them more. If DH doesn’t click with dad, he would rather those people not come over or do the outing alone or people HE likes. We hung out with this one family a ton and there was another family who was always trying to get together. The first family ended up divorcing and the dad is still one of dh’s closest friends. I don’t talk to either mom a decade later and these are people we used to sign up for soccer and camps together back in kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s rude, period. I don’t blame you for questioning it. If the mom who organized it wanted to include you, she would have. If it was a coincidence that they ran into each other, the should have mentioned it. Have manners, be inclusive and treat others the way you want to be treated. Set an example for your kids and don’t be a jerk.

It’s not rude. It wasn’t a party and they aren’t married to each other. The 4 of them hang out occasionally, that’s fine. That in no way means any gathering of any kind must involve all 4 being invited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s rude, period. I don’t blame you for questioning it. If the mom who organized it wanted to include you, she would have. If it was a coincidence that they ran into each other, the should have mentioned it. Have manners, be inclusive and treat others the way you want to be treated. Set an example for your kids and don’t be a jerk.

It’s not rude. It wasn’t a party and they aren’t married to each other. The 4 of them hang out occasionally, that’s fine. That in no way means any gathering of any kind must involve all 4 being invited.

Thank you! Reading this thread makes me feel like maybe I'm the crazy one for feeling the same way. Expecting FOUR kids to always be invited to every thing that one of the other four is doing is a little much. So 3 of them hung out without you. That's ok! Maybe one of the kids said "can I invite A and B to the park for a picnic?" because he had a specific playground game in mind in his head that the other 2 played at recess with him last week. What's the mom going to say, "oh we can only do that if you also invite C, because oftentimes we all do things together". I mean if C was standing right there then of course you counsel your kid that you need to invite C also, and not to ask for a playdate with one kid in front of another kid who you aren't inviting (adults could be better at this too honestly). But that doesn't mean that A isn't allowed to play with B, ever, unless C is also included. Or in this case, play with B and C ever if D isn't also included.